Influence of depression on fibromyalgia. A systematic review

Background. Fibromyalgia poses a challenge for therapy. Mainly comorbid depression has a negative impact on symptoms and impairment in patients with fibromyalgia. This paper gives a systematic overview of how depressiveness affects physical and psychological impairment, coping with disease and rehabilitation outcome among patients with fibromyalgia. The databases PubMed, Embase and PsychINFO were searched for studies published up to April 2010. Results and conclusions. Fibromyalgia patients with depressive symptoms show more sleep disturbances, sexual dysfunction, loss of physical function level and lower quality of life. Patients with fibromyalgia and comorbid depression showed poorer outcomes of multimodal rehabilitation than patients with fibromyalgia without depression. Therefore the assessment of depression should be included in the routine diagnostics of fibromyalgia. Furthermore, patients with fibromyalgia and comorbid depression should be motivated to seek therapy and get better support in coping with depression.